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The following summary observations are derived from the multitudinous failures of electronic voting equipment, and the election officials operating them, that have been documented over the past decade. These observations are by no means complete or authoritative but they do paint a very bleak picture for the honesty and integrity of our elections using current models of electronic voting machines.
These are not isolated failures or mistakes. I have only included such problems as have been found in more than one election and in more than one state. A more detailed and current tabulation of these problems has been compiled by VotersUnite.org. Additional details on such failures can be found in my book on Vote Fraud and Election Issues.
• Outright fraud, sabotage, or gross incompetence (usually impossible to tell the difference).
• Absentee, early, and polling place votes not correctly or accurately merged, and "negative" votes entered.
• Computer identifies voter thus preventing secret ballot.
• Not enough machines provided in polling place (new variant on Chicago Rules of Election Fraud).
• No standard test for accuracy exists. ES&S only claims ±1%. Accuracy may not be any better than ±7%.
• Computers not properly tested or calibrated.
• Uncertified, untested, or wrong software installed.
• Audit logs incomplete or inaccurate. Sometimes due to insufficient storage media.
• Programming errors. Usually found when vote totals don't match poll book. No one has any way to discriminate between "programming errors" and deliberate fraud or sabotage.
• Candidates and issues omitted from ballot on computer.
• In voting centers, or polling places with multiple precincts, voters are given wrong ballot style to vote on supposedly due to encoding errors by election judges.
• Same ballots counted two or more times.
• More ballots counted by computer than voters logged in poll book.
• Computer stops counting after a few thousand votes but voters keep voting on machine without any notice.
• Votes are logged but then disappear.
• Undervoting and overvoting not properly checked.
• Votes are given to different candidate than one selected by voter.
• Persistent rumors that if no candidate or issue selected machine gives vote to a default selection decided by programmer.
• Several candidates all receive exactly the same number of votes, e.g., 18,181 in Comal County, Texas.
• Straight party voting reverses parties, i.e., elector votes straight Democrat, votes are given to Republicans.
• Straight party votes not counted at all.
• Voting a straight party ticket can too easily result in undervote.
• Machines freeze, shutdown, reset, jam, or fail to boot up.
• Touch screens fail or lose calibration in high humidity.
• Uncertified, untested, or wrong software, firmware, and hardware installed.
• Memory cards fail or are "lost." (Data cartridges are easier to "lose" than ballot boxes)
• Computers not programmed correctly and may be reprogrammed during election.
• Machines programmed for ballots in one precinct end up in another.
• Marking devices, i.e., pencil or pen, wrong ink color (red ink or pencil usually not read by any scanner), gel inks vs. carbon inks, mark intensity, etc., on paper ballots not recognized and votes are not counted by scanner. For an excellent review of such problems see the Statement regarding the optical mark-sense tabulators in Maricopa County, Arizona by Prof. Douglas Jones.
• Scanner sensitivity not properly calibrated or tested prior to election.
• Scanners are difficult to calibrate and lose calibration during elections.
• Defects in scanner cause apparent overvoting and votes are not counted.
• Scanner heads and other components become dirty or scratched and introduce reading errors. For example, voters at home may use correction fluid on their ballot that may wipe off on the read head of the scanner, or food gets spilled on the ballot that transfers to the scanner. This is a particular problem with mail elections where tens or hundreds of thousands of ballots may be scanned with a single machine.
• Double-sided ballots not sufficiently opaque and marks on opposite side bleed through particularly if wrong marking instrument used.
• Overvoting rejection turned off (used to discriminate against minority voters).
• Candidates and issues omitted when ballot is scanned.
• Ballots with straight-party votes not counted correctly.
• Ballots don't fit scanner, or cannot be, or are not read by scanner.
• Ballots often jam due to high humidity.
• Computer identifies voter thus preventing secret ballot.
• Uncertified, untested, or wrong software, firmware, and hardware installed.
• Computers not programmed correctly and may be reprogrammed during election.
• Machines programmed for ballots in one precinct end up in another.
• Absentee or mail ballots have toner or ink transferred while folded and sacked for mailing and scanner reads smudge as vote or overvote.
• Fold in absentee or mail ballots read as vote or overvote.
• Dust and other spurious marks (often attributed to contact with other mail ballots) read as votes.
• Part of ballot becomes folded under in the stack and may jam scanner. Particular problem when attempting to use automatic feeder.
• Folds drag adjacent ballot into the scanner with automatic feeder.
• Ballot upside down can supposedly be handled but additional memory is required.
• Ripped or damaged ballots get caught on the next ballot or in the scanner.
• Bar code on ballot may be slightly damaged by spurious marks and the ballot rejected. This problem seems to happen unnecessarily considering that bar codes are very resilient in other applications.
• Undervotes or overvotes are registered where the voter rests their marking device by one of the choices making a mark that is picked up by scanner but voter hadn't actually voted. In other cases, the voter made a mark between the two choices that strayed into one box or the other, or both. In one hand counting experiment 35 of 265 ballots from one precinct were not readable by a scanner due to such extraneous marks.
All in all electronic voting systems don't exhibit the reliability and trustworthiness of a Game Boy toy. Yet we have been forced to put our most fundamental freedom in the hands of a few opportunistic vendors with no meaningful standards of accuracy, reliability, or usability. And worse yet, as of late 2009 it appears that ES&S and Diebold have merged into one monopolistic company counting 80% of America's votes.
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